1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to case loading equipment, and in particular to automated equipment for loading dairy products into cases.
2. Background
Grocery products such as milk and orange juice come in a variety of sized containers. Such containers are both filled at bottling plants and then loaded into cases for shipment to food retailers. Casing equipment has generally had to keep up with the speed with which the bottling equipment can fill the various containers to optimize the through-put ability of the bottling facility. A significant increase in casing speed was seen with the equipment described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,843,797. In this device, dual in-feed conveyors were used along with assembly areas to provide for functional overlap so as to allow for an increased casing rate of around 100 one gallon bottles per minute. However, substantial increases in that bottling rate will need to be accommodated and therefore, it will be necessary to have casing equipment equal to the task.